When it comes to health care, Hillary Clinton of all the presidential candidates faces a special burden. As her rivals left and right unveil their health care plans, Senator Clinton is moving cautiously, as if seeking a vaccine to protect her from a recurrence of her 1990's experience. Call it Hillary's Inoculation Strategy: go slow, […]

These are just some of the developments this week that made me barking mad: A new Iraq National Intelligence Assessment was conveniently released just before General David Petraeus is conveniently supposed to testify to Congress on September 11th. Despite the report's findings that the Iraqi government teeters on the brink of collapse and will experience […]

In Washington this week, the White House renewed George W. Bush's war against children's health care that dates back to his days as Governor of Texas. Just two weeks after the House and Senate each approved major expansions of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), the Bush administration announced draconian new eligibility rules that […]

In his address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars today, President Bush offered Americans what can only be called the "premature withdrawal" defense for his endless fiasco in Iraq. Claiming to predict Iraq's future by looking back to Vietnam's past, Bush declared the United States on the brink of victory pulled out too soon and […]

With former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani in his crosshairs, 2008 GOP White House hopeful Mitt Romney has begun running radio ads focusing on illegal immigration. Attacking sanctuary cities like Rudy's New York, Romney hopes to galvanize the fired-up anti-immigrant Republican base against Giuliani. As it turns out, Romney himself provided aid and comfort for […]

With his plea deal yesterday on charges of running a dog fighting operation, Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick likely brought his NFL career to an end. But Vick's next calling awaits him as soon as he is released from prison. Michael Vick, it would seem, is supremely qualified to be a conservative pundit. Far from […]

President Bush has never been shy about falsely linking the 9/11 attacks to his war in Iraq. Now, the Bush White House apparently is planning to reach a new low in symbolic cynicism when it comes to selling its Baghdad debacle. General David Petraeus will deliver his much anticipated Iraq surge progress report on September […]

In the wake of the controversial O'Hanlon/Pollack op-ed endorsing the progress of the surge in Iraq, the liberal blogosphere has been awash in commentary about the mainstream media's narrow reliance on the pro-surge viewpoints of "very serious people" constituting the "foreign policy clerisy." As it turns out, not so much. A new joint report from […]

Among the more tragi-comic aspects of the departure of Karl Rove is the media's renewed interest in the Bush Doctrine and its three tenets of no safe havens for terrorists, preventive war and democracy promotion. Last Monday, Rove claimed that the Bush Doctrine would live on and be the President's legacy. And this morning, the […]

As the category 4 Hurricane Dean barrels towards his home state of Texas, President Bush is trying to "get out front" of the storm's potentially devastating impact. Their state already declared a disaster area, the Lone Star State will not only benefit from the lessons of Katrina; it looks like Texans may get the "Florida […]